Twitter for Dummies - Laura Fitton [61]
If you’re not on a Windows PC, you can sign up to be notified when they publish a Mac/Linux version of Digsby by going to www.digsby.com/signup/maclinux.
Try out a few of the Twitter desktop clients in the preceding list. But if none of the most popular Twitter clients appeal to you, never fear. You can find many Twitter desktop clients out there to choose from. Use Google or another search engine to search for desktop Twitter client, because more and more emerge every day. Again, we’re building www.oneforty.com to make all of this easier.
Another way to see what clients are popular? Simply look at the end of tweets from people you trust to find out what they use — tweets are source tagged with the name of the source client or application that sent them.
Figure 9-8: A Twitterrific desktop interface.
Figure 9-9: You can keep up with your Twitter account by using Digsby.
Mobile clients
The most basic way to use Twitter on a mobile phone, smartphone, or PDA is by text messaging (SMS). You simply have to add your mobile device to your Twitter profile, sending tweets to the 40404 short-code, and consequently having them associated with your username if you enable Phone as a delivery option on your Home screen sidebar.
You can also use SMS as a convenient way to receive tweets on your cellphone because the phone delivery option sends you the tweets of any user for whom you have turned on Notifications. You also receive your direct messages, although not your @replies at the time of writing. But getting so many text messages can be expensive if you don’t subscribe to an unlimited texting plan. Because SMS also costs Twitter money, Twitter might eliminate the SMS service in the future to cut costs or begin charging for SMS to offset those costs. To prepare yourself for that possible situation, you may want to invest in a mobile Twitter client.
You can take the easy road if you have a smartphone or PDA that has a decent Web browser and a data plan from your cell carrier. Visit http://m.twitter.com for the mostly-functional mobile version of the site.
Or, download one of the following mobile applications and see how amazing Twitter can be when you take it on the road:
For an iPhone: You can use the Twitterrific (www.twitterrific.com) iPhone app, as well as other apps such as Hahlo (http://hahlo.com) and Tweetie (www.atebits.com/tweetie-iphone). You can find them by searching in the iTunes App Store.
For a BlackBerry: Your choices are limited, but most BlackBerry users prefer an app called TwitterBerry (www.orangatame.com/products/twitterberry).
For a Java-enabled phone: TinyTwitter (www.tinytwitter.com) is an excellent choice out of many options. One of the more stable Java applications for the mobile phone, TinyTwitter gives you all the functions that other mobile Twitter clients do, yet it doesn’t take up a huge amount of space if your phone doesn’t have a lot of room on it for extra applications.
For Windows Mobile–based smartphones and PDAs: You can find several options out there, but none of them are all that great. Here are several clients for Windows Mobile that you might want to check out:
• Twobile (www.infinitumsoftware.com/twobile): Users swear by its stability, especially on the often-unstable Windows Mobile operating system. But some users do have issues with the fact that, like the Digsby desktop client (see “Desktop clients,” earlier in this chapter), Twobile doesn’t display avatars, making it more difficult for you to tell at a glance whether your favorite people and companies on Twitter are talking. If you want a stable option that experiences few crashes, Twobile (shown in Figure 9-10) fits that bill, but the list interface has its problems.
• ceTwit (www.kosertech.com/blog/?page_id=5): A bit better on the design front than Twobile. It does have avatars associated with the tweets that come through, and you can easily use it, especially if you have a touch screen phone. It doesn’t look as pretty as some desktop Twitter clients,